4 ms·

This. Once you're building something that genuinely hasn't been built before, LLMs cannot be trusted with any architectural decisions. I'm building a product ba

by odeono 4mo ago

This. Once you're building something that genuinely hasn't been built before, LLMs cannot be trusted with any architectural decisions. I'm building a product based around various physics simulations, so it's purely first principles, but without active research, thinking, and challenging, it produces computational code literally hundreds of orders of magnitude slower WHILE implementing absurd fallbacks and shortcuts that effectively result in a useless calculation. This is the case perhaps 95% of the time. Oversight is very important, and architectural thinking cannot yet be outsourced, only execution.

bobro 4mo ago
>literally hundreds of orders of magnitude slower I'm sure this is just a slip of the tongue (finger), but the idea of being a numerical googol times slower is funny.
MagicMoonlight 4mo ago
[dead]
physicsguy 4mo ago
I have had similar when trying it too. I couldn't even drive Claude Opus 4.7 to get PETsc to compile properly (with all the optional dependencies)
ex-aws-dude 4mo ago
I find that too, Claude Code is constantly trying to break the architecture patterns and do hacky stuff Like its only focused on solving the local problem as easy as possible
throw-the-towel 4mo ago
How many of us here are building something genuinely new, though?
- batshit_beaver 4mo ago
  Hopefully everyone? Else your job could have been outsourced or replaced by a junior with access to Google and StackOverflow way before LLMs (it just wasn’t due to zero interest rates and proliferation of bullshit jobs in tech companies).
  - jckahn 4mo ago
    That's not been my experience. Most professional software is just a CRUD app in one form or another.
    - jimbokun 4mo ago
      Yes and it’s probably better for society as a whole that all of those can now be vibe coded by someone who is not a full time developer.
lowbloodsugar 4mo ago
Sure. But where do you think AI will be in a year? Or do you think that AI is just an advanced Markov chain? Like “AI will never be able to write code. Ok AI will never be able to debug code. ok ai will never be able to write design docs. Ok AI will never be able to architecture. Ok ai will never be able to do distributed systems architecture. Ok ai will never be able to design new products completely from scratch. Ok AI will never be able to run a company. Ok AI will never be able to run a city. Ok AI will never be able to run a government. Ok ai will never be able to run the world economy…” It’s Robin Williams Gaddadi sketch “Ok you cross this line you die!” [1]. [1] https://youtu.be/GCOOOyuTBzA?si=YnCWH9LJqb_yYolG https://youtu.be/GCOOOyuTBzA?si=YnCWH9LJqb_yYolG
- odeono 4mo ago
  [dead]
anon7725 4mo ago
And to close the loop - there is no architectural thinking without experience in execution. The highly productive people who are all-in on agentic coding today are powered by their previous experience doing implementation. As time goes on their powers will wane unless they make a point to keep them sharp by doing enough hands-on implementation. It’s the same as a “non-coding architect” role (remember those). Most of them are absolutely full of shit architecture astronauts.

by odeono 4mo ago

bobro 4mo ago

>literally hundreds of orders of magnitude slower I'm sure this is just a slip of the tongue (finger), but the idea of being a numerical googol times slower is funny.

MagicMoonlight 4mo ago

[dead]

physicsguy 4mo ago

I have had similar when trying it too. I couldn't even drive Claude Opus 4.7 to get PETsc to compile properly (with all the optional dependencies)

ex-aws-dude 4mo ago

I find that too, Claude Code is constantly trying to break the architecture patterns and do hacky stuff Like its only focused on solving the local problem as easy as possible

throw-the-towel 4mo ago

How many of us here are building something genuinely new, though?

batshit_beaver 4mo ago
Hopefully everyone? Else your job could have been outsourced or replaced by a junior with access to Google and StackOverflow way before LLMs (it just wasn’t due to zero interest rates and proliferation of bullshit jobs in tech companies).
- jckahn 4mo ago
  That's not been my experience. Most professional software is just a CRUD app in one form or another.
  - jimbokun 4mo ago
    Yes and it’s probably better for society as a whole that all of those can now be vibe coded by someone who is not a full time developer.

lowbloodsugar 4mo ago

Sure. But where do you think AI will be in a year? Or do you think that AI is just an advanced Markov chain? Like “AI will never be able to write code. Ok AI will never be able to debug code. ok ai will never be able to write design docs. Ok AI will never be able to architecture. Ok ai will never be able to do distributed systems architecture. Ok ai will never be able to design new products completely from scratch. Ok AI will never be able to run a company. Ok AI will never be able to run a city. Ok AI will never be able to run a government. Ok ai will never be able to run the world economy…” It’s Robin Williams Gaddadi sketch “Ok you cross this line you die!” [1]. [1] https://youtu.be/GCOOOyuTBzA?si=YnCWH9LJqb_yYolG https://youtu.be/GCOOOyuTBzA?si=YnCWH9LJqb_yYolG

odeono 4mo ago
[dead]

anon7725 4mo ago

And to close the loop - there is no architectural thinking without experience in execution. The highly productive people who are all-in on agentic coding today are powered by their previous experience doing implementation. As time goes on their powers will wane unless they make a point to keep them sharp by doing enough hands-on implementation. It’s the same as a “non-coding architect” role (remember those). Most of them are absolutely full of shit architecture astronauts.